


Birthday Girls

by poisonedapple



Category: Nana (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Birthday, Gen, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-09-02 21:13:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16794847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisonedapple/pseuds/poisonedapple
Summary: Collection of tumblr drabbles I wrote for the girls' birthdays over the years.





	1. Hachi's Birthday Wishes

(2015)

Hachi celebrates her 21st birthday, the first one with Nana at her side, just as she’d celebrated Nana’s 20th and 21st birthday at Nana’s side (the first one a meeting of fate, the second a tragedy).

On her 35th birthday, we can only hope that her birthday wish for all the years in between as been granted and she celebrates her 35th with Nana at her side.

(2016)

Hachi was born Komatsu Nana, the middle daughter of three, on November 30, 1980. Her 7th birthday was celebrated with her family in her hometown, smiling and laughing. Her 21st birthday was celebrated among her friends in Tokyo, smiling and laughing.

Today, her 36th birthday is hopefully being celebrated with her own family and old friends, smiling and laughing.

(2018)

The Komatsu family always spoiled their daughters on their birthday and took even more care to make Nana feel special because they knew that middle children often felt out-shined by their older and younger siblings. Of course they never really needed to worry - Nana looked up to Nao like she hung the moon and stars, and Nana cooed and coddled after Nami all the way up until Nami entered high school. **  
**

Nana got everything she wished for her birthdays - gifts of whatever she had asked for and cake and family to share it all with. Even as their sweet Nana entered high school and made friends with Saotome Junko and celebrated her birthday singing karaoke with her, their daughter always made time to celebrate her birthday with her family as well and always kissed her mother and father’s cheek with frosting on her lips and thanked them for giving birth to her and also for beautiful dress, necklace, phone they’d given her. They laughed and said, “This girl,” while clasping her face in their hands.

They knew on her nineteenth birthday, spent locked in her room as she studied furiously to take entrance exams to go to Tokyo, that their time with their middle daughter was short. She had always been too much to be contained in the town they’d raised her in.

It was no surprise when, just over a year later, Nana had run away to Tokyo with only a letter to say goodbye. It was, perhaps, more surprising when only a few short months later their daughter gave them the news that she was expecting a child.

On her twenty-first birthday Hachi spent it in Room 707, surrounded by friends new and old even if a few were missing (she didn’t know if she missed Takumi or Nobu more), but she still remembered to call her parents and thank them. It was one of the best birthday’s she’d ever had, with Nana singing her ‘Happy Birthday’ for the first time.

Hachi spent her 22nd birthday weeping. Postpartum depression and grief, the doctors said. She was stressed, they said. She shouldn’t push herself too hard.

Her 23rd birthday, Hachi smiled thinly as her family and remaining friends gathered to sing her happy birthday.

But her 24th birthday, Hachi laughed and clapped her hands. She fed her son and daughter bites of cake from her own slice and wiped their faces as they made messes. There were people missing from the table, faces Hachi wished were there to sing her happy birthday, but she was thankful for the faces that were there. She remembered to thank her parents this year, this time with the understanding of what it meant to be a parent and to give birth to a child.

For many birthdays after that, Hachi spent them with her family - with Satsuki and Ren and sometimes Takumi, if he wasn’t too busy, if he was in the country. She wished on every birthday candle a wish that doesn’t come true until many years later, but it was worth the wait so Hachi doesn’t mind.

Hachi always gets her wish.


	2. Nana's Birthday Cake

(2016)

March 5th, 2001, Nana turns twenty by the side of a girl she only just met, but will change her life within the span of a year.  
March 5th, 2002, Nana turns twenty-one beside the same girl, but time stopped moving for her the night before.  
Years later, Nana spends the days leading up to her birthday with the resolve to buy herself a one-way ticket to Tokyo, while her friends sing her happy birthday in another country, hoping to sing with her beside them next year.  
Where she spends her thirty-fifth, we can only hope is by that girl’s side.

(2018)

Happy birthday to you ♪  
Happy birthday dear Nana ♪  
Happy birthday to you ♪

Hey Nana, you’re not here to blow out the candles, but what do you wish for?  
Since you left, I’ve only wished for you.

Nana’s first memories start with her mother letting go of her hands and snow piling up and the first memory of her birthday is a few months later.

(She has no memories of birthdays with Misuzu - Nana doesn’t know if her mom never celebrated it or if she had, if there’d been cake. Nana doesn’t care.)

Miyuki spent Nana’s entire fourth birthday swearing up a storm about Nana’s mom, cursing her daughter for not coming back for Nana but also cursing that she’d toss Misuzu out on her ass if she tried to come back for her grandchild. There hadn’t been a party or music or a sponge cake, but there had been a gift - a dolly - and a single daifuku purchased from the Japanese confectionary store.

Miyuki raised Nana strictly and restricted her granddaughter from many things to make sure she never turned out to be like her wretched mother; Nana was denied the colors red and pink, frills and lace, anime, cake, and birthday parties.

Miyuki loved Nana, in her own way. She always gave Nana a single present and a single Japanese confectionary - even if she never let Nana have the ichigo daifuku that her granddaughter wanted. She did not let her have strawberries - they had been Miyuki’s favorite too - but she always let Nana have the day off from helping her in the shop.

It was Nana’s sixteenth birthday when she first receives a gift from a friend - a couple CDs from Nobu, including the Sex Pistols CD he’d first lent her. She had a copy of her own that she’d bought after he’d first lent her his, but she only used the one Nobu gave her in the years to come. She spent her day off of working for her grandmother listening to the CD on low in her room and felt something stirring inside her.

Her seventeenth birthday, Miyuki is dead and Nana has so many regrets. She spent her entire birthday working three different jobs but between shifts she ran down to the local bakery and bought herself a sponge cake with strawberries. The patissier asked her if it was for a birthday and Nana had hesitantly said, “Yes,” and he wrote Happy Birthday on the cake for her with a smile.

Nana cried as she ate her cake alone in her apartment, savoring the taste of cream and strawberries, and she missed her grandmother.

Her eighteenth birthday, Nana had her first boyfriend. She worked the entire day and sang for a crowd of people screaming her name. Misato gave her a leather jacket that became a staple of her wardrobe. Ren hand-fed her strawberry cake and they had sex in the bathtub and again in bed.

Nana worked her entire nineteenth birthday away, saving up money to buy herself a present for her 20th birthday.

Yasu doesn’t come with her to Tokyo on her 20th birthday, despite her fervent wish, but if he had Nana would never have sat next to her - to Hachi, her best friend, her soul mate. Nana wouldn’t have given up that train ride for anything. There was no cake that night, but there was beer and laughter.

Her 21st birthday.... She never had a 21st birthday. Time had stopped the day before, the day Ren died.

For many birthdays after that, Nana spent her birthdays promising that she’ll buy herself a ticket home.

The day she does, Nana eats a cake with strawberry on top and misses so much more than her grandmother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I miiiight do a Reira one when that comes back around idk. But happy birthday to Nana and a special happy birthday to our dear mangaka, Yazawa Ai!!

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently I missed 2017 for Hachi (lol). I think I missed a year for Nana too so that tracks. u_u; I'll post Nana's on her birthday. :p


End file.
